Emacs as a C Programming IDE Configuration?

[haziz]

I use emacs as my main IDE for programming in C. I am exploring ways of 
configuring emacs to function more as an IDE rather than as a simple text 
editor. Of course I want syntax highlighting and preferably some code 
completion. I also want separate buffers to allow shell commands and to M-x 
compile. I want it to open into this multi-buffer form automatically when 
visiting a C source file, rather than having to launch each buffer separately. 
I will be using this mainly for Linux/BSD Unix development, though I also code 
on Mac OS X (again Unix) and Windows (Windows 7 64bit).

I explored the Emacs Starter Kit posted by Phil Hagelberg (technomancy), but it 
seems very oriented towards dynamic languages and use of git. I use emacs 
mainly for developing in C and use mercurial for VC. I am also a relative 
newbie making configuration of emacs relatively daunting for me.

I am now playing with CEDET and the Emacs Code Browser (ECB) package which is 
more along the lines of what I want, but is still not perfect.

Any suggestions on customizing emacs as a C programming IDE welcome.